“It’s Chaucer,” I say automatically and cross my arms. “From The Knight’s Tale , the first story in The Canterbury Tales . Sit down. You’re upsetting the crazies.”

She glances around to observe the other patients and their families giving her guarded looks. Then she reseats herself behind the table. “I don’t think ‘crazies’ is acceptable terminology coming from—”

“I’m a professor of philosophy. Not a doctor, as you so clearly pointed out. Challenging political correctness is what I do.”

“Among other, more nefarious things.”

I crane an eyebrow. “And here you are, still without verifiable proof.”

“And here you sit, in a nuthouse.”

“My, what dirty terminology from that mouth.” I run my tongue along the inside of my bottom lip, sensing the ire brimming beneath her tightly-laced veneer. It’s delectable.

After a beat of tense silence, she states, “I know it’s Chaucer. I can google. Is that all you have to offer in way of insight?”

I release a low chuckle, thoroughly amused. “You’ve given me nothing to go on. What it pertains to…is in connection to? Oh, I can spew for hours on end about the boring, mind-numbing tediousness of Chaucer and his overly praised drivel, but I highly doubt that will serve to enlighten anyone.”

She tilts her head. “And yet, you once quoted him to me.”

Her confession is a small flame teasing my skin, the fiery stroke of pleasure so close yet just out of reach. She catches the slip on her part, her eyes darting away. My remark in the courtroom did more than spark her curiosity; it unnerved her.

She thought about it.

She thought about me.

“I quote a lot of people,” I say, my gaze cataloging her every micro-expression. “Once in a while, someone gets it right. Even a cad like Chaucer.”

Inhaling a deep breath, her small, shapely breasts rising to attract my notice, Halen relents a degree. She reaches into the satchel she has nestled near her feet and produces a manila folder.

“I was called to a crime scene yesterday afternoon.” She opens the folder and angles printed images my way. “I’m exploring an esoteric angle, possibly a perpetrator with a delusional connection to a philosophy or philosopher.” Her eyes catch mine briefly before she returns her gaze to the top image. “Or even a delusional prophetic connection.”

Like the Harbinger killer.

But she’s trying hard to dance around that angle, though her inability to look me in the eyes gives her away.

“You like that word, delusional.” I smirk and lean forward to inspect the images. Her shots are decent, capturing the dark, haunting imagery of the eyes and trees. I fan through them, noting the pictures are more artistic than candid crime-scene shots.

I’m well aware of the scene. I have access to the Internet at Briar, and there’s a media buzz surrounding the morbid display of eerie trees with dead eyes. Rumors already circulate around the disappeared people from Hollow’s Row, along with whispers of satanic practices.

When fear presents, people can be so boring and predictable. Since the dawn of time, humans have been creating devils to blame for their misfortune. Every generation or so, he’s resurrected in a new form and given the power to destroy humanity.

Good and evil do not inherently exist within matter. It’s the person, the consciousness, who decides whether or not a deed will serve as either.

“Esotericism is an extremely wide net,” I say, disdain evident in my tone. Everything—from ancient Greek philosophy to new age theology—that isn’t under the umbrella of the Judeo-Christian religion, scholars have placed within that vague category.

She nods. “I know,” she says, her agreement surprising me. “It’s a catch-all. But it’s a starting point, at least.”

I use the tips of my fingers to nudge the images back in her direction. “That’s one hell of a leap from dissected eyes to Chaucer. But that’s your specialty, isn’t it? Leaping to a suspect based on no real evidence at all.”

“A crime-scene tech made the connection,” she says, decidedly ignoring my scathing sarcasm.

“And I came to mind. Should I be flattered, or insulted?” I sit forward, palms braced on the edge of the table. “I’ll go with insulted, seeing as the reason you’re really here is that you assume I’m somehow involved.”

She shrugs, unapologetic. “I didn’t discount the notion when it came to me.”

I smile wickedly, giving her the full, panty-dropping wattage. “Then maybe I should be flattered you think of me at all. But the last time we spoke, I wound up in a straitjacket. So I’ll take a hard pass this time around.”

“You approached me, Locke. I didn’t force those damning words from your mouth.” As I start to rise, she says, “Wait—” She points to a particular section of an image where it appears there was a fire. “I need to know if any of Chaucer’s works parallel with the scene.”

I smile and push to my feet. “Dr. St. James, you can google, as you’ve said. Get the cliff notes.” I wave my hand to summon the beefy bouncer of the visitation room.

“Right,” she says, slipping the images into the folder. “Chaucer’s not the only overly praised drivel in academia.”

Despite the obvious dig at my ego, I rise to the challenge. “Chaucer is way off course. You have to go back further than him to find any tenable esoteric correlation.”

Her gaze snaps to mine. “How much further?”

“Start with antiquity, and go from there.”

She shakes her head. “That’s…vast. You’re fucking with me.”

Her crass words are nails raking my back. Oh, how I can’t wait to fuck with her.

I spin my thumb ring as I meet her suspicious gaze. “He who sees with his eyes is blind,” I say, the quote slipping coolly off my tongue like water over ice. “Just a guess. It’s a starting point, at least.” I give her a wink.

I start to turn away, and an ember of panic flares behind her hazel eyes. “What do you want?” she asks.

As the psych tech approaches, I ask for a moment longer, then meet the eyes of the woman who had me committed to an insane asylum. “First, I’d like you to use my first name. Second, I want what anyone in confinement wants. My freedom.”

She stands opposite me, her stature that of a sprite, her temperament just as volatile. “No window views or stocked commissary for the great Kallum Locke, I see.”

“Naturally.”

“What you’re asking for is not within my power.”

I lean across the table, inhaling a punishing lungful of her arousing scent. “You have no idea what’s within your power, sweetness.”

This time, the pretty pink hue dusting her cheeks isn’t a ploy.

A satisfied current of pride ripples beneath my skin as I push away from the table. “Short of my freedom,” I say, “I want you to fuck off, Halen. Good luck on your case.”

I exit the visitation room with the tech, leaving Halen staring after me for dramatic effect.

Once I return to my room, I close the door and stalk to the wall of art I was given permission to hang…with adhesive putty, since there’s a fear of using tiny thumbtacks as weapons. I could do more damage with the cheaply printed poster by inflicting paper cuts.

I remove the tacky, mass-produced print of a Nietzsche watercolor portrait and flip it over, retrieving the photo I placed there earlier this morning before Halen’s arrival.

Granted, had I known she’d come to me, I wouldn’t have wasted one of my favors from a nurse. Trust—or more aptly faith —is a process. Once the sigil was charged, I tried to purge all traces of it from my mind—but relinquishing control is an even harder practice.

I touch the image of Halen standing in the killing fields, her intense focus on the crime scene. I had the nurse pay a gross amount of my money to one sleazy reporter to capture the picture.

I mean, I do have a vivid imagination. I could have simply imagined her there, let my mind run wild as I envisioned her gazing at the trees, doing her little deduction dance as she pieced together the clues. Her pain a sonnet to the crime gods.